Safely Dead
by Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Attolia listens to Ornon and decides to hang Eugenides instead of cutting off his hand. This goes exactly as well as you might expect.
1. Chapter 1

Attolia had ordered many executions. A hanging was far from the most notable one the list.

She had killed her husband with her own hands, felt the poison tingle on her lips, and had walked away with her back straight.

This was nothing. A public execution for a known thief from another country. Nothing to a queen whose barons whispered was made of stone.

But in the hot still air of the courtyard, watching him mount the steps to the gallows, she could still almost hear the echoes of the nights.

_Oxe harbrea sacrus vas dragga onus savonus sophos et ere. We invoke the Great Goddess in our hour of need for her wisdom and her mercy. Oxe harbrea sacrus vas draggy onus savonus sophos . . ._

She had not ordered Relius to do whatever he must to find out the answers she needed. She hadn't had to.

She hadn't had to walk in the dead of night to listen outside the cell door as the thief sobbed out those words either, but that was the lesson she'd taught herself: Do what you must and face it. Look at it in all its horror and then do it anyway and do it again, more cruelly if necessary. Close yourself up in stone if necessary, but do it.

She had gone, and she had stayed, and hot bile had risen in her throat as she listened.

_Great Goddess . . ._

His goddess had delivered him straight into her hands.

She was not as blessed as her fellow queen in the mountains; she knew betrayal and knew it intimately. She expected it now. The faith the thief had clung to was as unthinkable to her as the idea that he might have been betrayed seemed to be to him.

Even now, as he climbed the steps to the gallows, his lips moved, and she wondered if it was in prayer.

They had cleaned the blood from his face and his hands, but they couldn't hide the way he limped or the broken curl of fingers twisted too far, bruises blossoming on his hands that would never have time to heal.

Nahuseresh had wanted her to cut off those hands, but it was a delicate line she walked with the ambassador, and it wouldn't do to go too far over it by listening to him too often. Hanging was traditional for thieves, and no one would call her weak for doing it. Nor could Eddis kick up too great a fuss.

It was a perfectly sound decision.

And maybe it would silence the cries that still echoed in her ears.

_Oxe harbrea sacrus vas dragga onus savonus sophus et ere . . ._

He had told her once that she was more beautiful than his mistress, but that his mistress was far more kind.

If the statues were to be believed, the gods were beautiful too. He should have known better than to ask them to be kind.

She sat on her own platform at the back of the gathered crowd, an awning over her head to protect from the noonday sun. Nahuseresh stood beside her, shaking his head a little at the spectacle.

"He deserves worse," he said. "Your barons - "

"My barons have had reminders enough," she said. "Better to have him safely dead quickly and spend no more time on the matter."

The Mede bowed. "As wise as every, dear queen," he murmured.

She smiled and raised the cub of wine a servant offered her to her lips.

The thief stood still upon the stage. His eyes were locked on the sky above as the rope was fitted around his neck.

He was not offered a chance to speak, and she was glad. She would hear no more invocations to cold and empty gods.

The trapdoor opened.

The thief fell.

She knew, all too well, that a hanging could be instant or slow depending on how the rope was tied. The neck could be snapped, or they could be left to strangle. She had given no instructions. She had not thought to.

The thief's neck did not snap.

The Mede smiled slowly. "Ah," he said. "An example after all."

"Yes," she said and continued to smile because everything had to be seen as intentional. She drank her wine and waited for the thief's last fall to end.

The wine was bitter on her tongue.

* * *

His cries did not stop echoing in her ears despite her hopes, but it was no matter. She had heard worse.

It was nothing, nothing, nothing, and she was stone, impenetrable to its strikes.

Even if every sip of wine, even now, was as bitter as sacrificial blood.

The Mede had been generous; the ambassador's gift of gold had arrived as promised, and with her treasury full, perhaps her people would not suffer too badly for the Aracthus's temporary dam. The waters had been released now, and though the harvest would suffer, it would still come.

The letters and reports saying as much were stacked neatly on her desk when she went to sleep. They were still there when she woke up although they were not quite so precisely as neat.

But the great thief of Eddis was no more to have come and disturbed them, and the window was near. Even now there was a soft breeze blowing, rustling the papers in her frozen hands.

_Sophos et ere_, whispered the wind. _Sophos et ere._

Wisdom and mercy, someone had translated it once, but wisdom and love was more accurate. Ruthless love, like a queen's love for her country. There was no room in that love for concern for an individual, only the whole.

It was nothing, she reminded herself, and she put the papers down.

* * *

"Teleus tells me there's been a slight problem," Relius told her. HIs eyes flicked over in slight distaste to the Mede, who had intruded on their otherwise private audience, but the queen gestured for him to go on.

The ambassador smiled at the show of trust.

It was precisely that, of course. A show.

Relius was the one she trusted -

No. Not trust, never full trust. He had taught her that himself. But she trusted his wisdom and discretion at least, so she trusted that Relius would be intelligent enough not to say anything too troubling now.

The ambassador would still be pleased, and if he was pleased, she could coax him into another gift.

"There has been an illness going around the guard," Relius informed her. "A problem with the food we believe; spoiled meat, perhaps."

She raised an eyebrow. "Intentionally served spoiled food?" Surely he must at least suspect it, or he would not have brought it to her. An attempt to weaken her defenses, perhaps -

"It's . . . hard to say," Relius said slowly. "The men affected were not currently assigned to any particular duties, nor connected in any other way. Except." He hesitated again, and this was unlike him. She felt her impatience grow.

"Yes?" the ambassador said, impatient too but out of line.

She bit her tongue and waved Relius on.

"They had served one the same duties in the past," Relius said. "For some time they had served in a squad together before Teleus reorganized - " He shrugged this off. "It is possible they offended someone in the course of their duties. A minor matter, but if someone is trying to interfere with your guard than worth noting."

Offended.

_Do not offend the gods._

She did not shudder.

"Let me know how they fare," she ordered and rose from her chair in the hopes that a walk in the noonday sun might dispel her sudden chill.

* * *

Her papers continued to be - not disturbed. They could not be being disturbed.

But that was naive. Just because one thief was dead did not mean that there would not be other spies, or that Eddis would not continue the office. She would tighten security again and hope that it was more effective than it had proven for so long last time.

She locked her papers away before she went to bed.

When she arose, they were still locked away in their box with no sign that they had been disturbed.

There was also a noose hanging over it neatly.

She could not quite hold back the scream.

* * *

"There has been no word that Eddis has a new thief," Relius told her, but he scowled as he said it. "Then again, there's been very little word from Eddis at all. Even Therespides has gone silent since the hanging."

The Mede Ambassador wasn't there. Something he'd eaten hadn't agreed with him.

Perhaps it was the meat.

"Then you don't know," Attolia said turning the rope over and over in her hands.

If they had been close enough to leave a noose, they had been close enough to tighten one.

"Talk to the executioner," she said abruptly.

Relius startled. "The executioner?"

She flung the rope at him. "The one that hung the thief."

She did not believe in ghosts.

Then again, there had been a time she did not believe in gods.

She would believe in anything now.

* * *

She woke in the night and saw earrings glinting on the pillow beside her, gems dark as bitter wine.

There was a hand still hovering just over them. The other was holding a knife to her throat.

There was a knife under her pillow, but what was that to a dead man?

"Good evening, my queen," he said, far too cheerfully, in a voice so low there was no hope the guards might hear. "I have a proposal for you."


	2. Chapter 2

It was every thief's curse - and right - to die in a fall.

This was not quite the fall he'd had in mind.

It was hot, blisteringly hot, and he had a faint hope that the sweat beading his arms would be enough to let him slip through the rope binding his hands behind his back, but that hope, like every other he'd clung to since he'd been captured, proved false.

Ornon was watching him grimly from the crowd of guards and courtiers come to watch the show. Eugenides ignored him. Ornon was the man who'd provoked the queen into providing him with a quick death, and he wasn't sure yet whether he was grateful for the quick or resentful for the death. He'd run out of time to figure it out.

His eyes skated over the smiling queen, so happy to see him walking to his death.

His broken fingers weren't the only things that hurt.

He'd run out of time for a lot of things.

Easier not to look at any of them. Easier to look up with one last plea.

_I have served you faithfully. I will serve you still. Do not let me fall._

_Please._

_Do not let her be the one to make me fall._

But the spears of the guards jabbed him forward, and there was the rope.

One last piece of jewelry in honor of his god.

Each second was an eon, but it still wasn't enough time because the wooden planks were disappearing beneath his feet and the rope was stretching -

Stretching almost taut.

His feet found purchase on something, he had no idea what, and he struggled to balance. The rope wasn't quite tight enough to cut off all of his air, but it was making a good effort, and only a tiny breath whistled in.

Black spots danced in front of his eyes, but his footing held.

There was a breath on the wind, and it whispered to him, _Trust me._

His eyes closed, but he did not fall.

* * *

Warm light poured through a window into the library. It was not the library at Eddis. He wasn't sure where it was, but the thought seemed monumentally unimportant.

His patron was standing in front of the window, the warm light dancing over his dark skin.

"Eugenides," his patron greeted him with a wry twist to his mouth. "The others are displeased. There was a plan, you know."

"I didn't, actually. I might could have done a better job of following it if I'd had any idea what it was," he said, drifting closer despite the fear the words invoked.

"You played your part perfectly, actually," he said. "It was Ornon that was the problem. Or possibly the Queen of Attolia or even the Mede." He sighed and turned to face the mortal thief. "They weren't supposed to hang you, you see."

"It mattered how was I executed?"

"You're not dead," his patron said reprovingly. "Which took a bit of doing, thanks to the way things turned out, and even more doing to make sure none of the wrong people noticed, but it was necessary. You're not supposed to die quite yet."

It was a little unnerving to talk to someone who probably knew exactly when that _yet_ would turn into _now,_ but at least he hadn't been called here to hear the failed hanging had been a fluke and the gods were about to correct their mistake.

"What _am_ I supposed to do?"

If there was an answer, he didn't remember it.

* * *

His eyes flew open. He tried to gasp, but his throat refused to do more than suck in tiny wisps of agonized breath.

He was moving, he realized, and he took in his surroundings for the first time. He was being carried in a wooden box of some kind, though thankfully one with a few cracks that let in a touch of light and air.

He could also hear Eddisian accents.

Safe, then, or near enough.

He raised a hand and knocked on the lid.

Movement stumbled to a stop. He knocked again.

There was a high pitched yelp and the whole thing came crashing to the ground. Eugenides grunted as the breath was knocked out of him. He didn't have much to spare.

But there was the lid being cracked open with two frightened faces peering down at him.

Eugenides waved cheerfully.

"Hello," he croaked. "I don't suppose you have some water?"

"You were dead," one of them whispered.

The other was decidedly more helpful and offered the requested water.

Eugenides sat up as best he could, wincing at the stiffness. A cautious prodding at his throat revealed more bruises and pain than he currently wanted to think about.

"Maybe," he conceded. "But not anymore. How long till we reach the court?"

* * *

Eddis had been prepared to receive the body she had grimly ransomed back.

She was not prepared to see Eugenides limping towards her throne behind his pale faced escort.

Beside her, the Minister of War had gone just as pale.

"She didn't hang you," Eddis said, and it was the first time she had ever felt the slightest bit grateful to the Queen of Attolia.

"Oh, no," Eugenides assured her. "She did." The rasp of his voice and the bruises she now noticed confirmed this. "But it's not her decision when a thief will die from a fall," and a look passed between that speaks of gifts and visions and gods.

She swallowed, but not even that could keep the relief from rushing through her. "I'm glad," she said fiercely. "She won't have another chance to try."

Eugenides winced. "About that."

"No."

* * *

He tried for a week to convince her otherwise.

When that failed, he just went anyway.

There were things they needed to know, like how close the Mede were coming to getting an alliance, and things they needed to do, like disrupting the potential for that alliance with a few well placed herbs.

The ambassador was only sick - the last thing they wanted was an excuse for the Mede to declare war - but it was enough to keep him from blandishing his oily compliments on the Queen, and that was something.

And if he tested out his plan on a few guards who had urged on the dogs . . .

Well. He was just being cautious, after all.

* * *

Eddis shouted at him when he came back. His father waited until he caught Eugenides in the training yard. They fought to a standstill in silence before the Minister of War put down his sword and said abruptly, "You'll be careful."

"Always," Eugenides said flippantly, but he had looked death in the face twice now, and there was true acknowledgement in his eyes.

* * *

The noose was a bit too on the nose, maybe, and certainly a risk. If she didn't know someone was sneaking around her megaron again before, she certainly knew now.

But the nightmares had never faltered in their perfect depiction of the rope tightening ever more while she smiled at the Mede and drank her wine, and he had to do something.

He was close enough when she found it to hear her scream.

* * *

When he finally revealed his plan to Eddis, she told him he was insane.

"Maybe," he admitted. "But it'll work." He fiddled with the cushion he sat on by her feet. "Will you back me?"

It was a risk, he knew. For all of them.

But he also knew he was not the only who had been having nightmares, and Eddis's were not of the noose.

"I'll back you," she said with a sigh. "I'll always back you, you know that." She looked down at him. "Your father won't like it though."

"So, so, so - " He sighed in turn and admitted defeat. "So. But I'll try it anyway."

* * *

He brought her earrings as a sort of apology for the noose and also for the fact that he was holding a knife to her throat in the interest of her not getting the chance to pull one on him.

"Good evening, my queen," he said as cheerfully as he could manage, pretending those words didn't do something strange to his chest. My queen, my queen, my queen. "I have a proposal for you."

"Oh?" she asked, perfectly composed.

"You need allies," he pointed out. "And the Mede ambassador has been increasingly . . . indisposed."

Her eyes narrowed. "Your doing."

"That's not what the Mede Empire will think if he dies," Eugenides pointed out. "Why should they, when they have a queen well known for poisoning the men at her table right there and ready to blame?"

"One man," she said coolly. "And if they do suspect it, they'll finally have an excuse to invade. Once they have a foothold there, do you really think your mountains will be safe?"

"I don't," he conceded. "Unfortunately, if we do nothing, it seems increasingly likely they'll get a foothold anyway."

She stiffened. "As you said. I need allies."

"Like Eddis?"

She laughed bitterly. "I very much doubt your queen is currently kindly disposed towards me."

"Not particularly," he admitted. "But there could be guarantees. A marriage is traditional, I think."

He saw the moment it hit her, and his stomach twisted with nerves. This wasn't - it wasn't -

Well, it certainly wasn't the way his father had proposed to his mother.

"I did say I came with a proposal."

"You want me to marry a dead man."

"I'm not dead," he protested. "Just hard to kill."

He pulled the knife back and ignored the thrill of fear that shot through him when he did.

"Think of it this way," he said. "You'll have a far easier time trying to control me than the Mede. And I don't have an obnoxiously oily beard."

Something that was almost a smile twitched across her mouth. "Send your proposal through your ambassador," she said, "and I'll consider it."

"The last time Ornon tried to be diplomatic, he got me hanged," Eugenides grumbled, but his heart felt like it might pound out of his chest.

She hadn't screamed. She would consider it.

All things considered, it could have gone much worse.


End file.
